Cool Cucumber Salad

In Vancouver, we get about one month of summer each year. We spend our June-uary days in sweaters and jackets; I’ve even attended an early July fireworks celebration wearing a down vest and toque.

Just so you know, it’s not like this in all of Canada. We don’t live on ice floes with the polar bears. Many parts of the country, including other cities in British Columbia, have lovely, sweltering summers.

When summer finally arrives here, it’s glorious – except no one has air conditioning. And I live on the second floor, where it becomes unbearably hot and airless. That means I avoid my oven like the plague and rely on refreshing salads like this one.

This cucumber salad is light and cooling, plus it only takes a few minutes to prepare, so I can spend more time languishing in the shade trying to beat the heat.